It is often desirable to generate continuous imagery of a scene from an aircraft. Such imagery may be used for any number of different purposes, including, for example, identifying potential targets. This is sometimes accomplished by a system that includes a detector array of detector elements, such as a complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) detector array or a focal plane array. The detector array may be coupled to a gimbal that is configured to continuously scan the detector array around a field of regard of the gimbal. The system generates imagery based on image data generated by the detector array. Such imagery may be continuously rendered, for example, on a display in the cockpit of the aircraft and/or may be utilized by automated systems, such as target identification systems, to identify potential targets.
Often, such systems rely on time delay and integration (TDI) scanning technology to increase sensitivity. TDI scanning involves scanning a scene at a rate that is tied to a charge shift rate of the detector array, such that the accumulated charges shift at the same rate that the detector array is scanned across the scene. However, while TDI scanning facilitates greater sensitivity, it suffers from other drawbacks such as a need to maintain a constant scan rate to avoid blurring and smearing of the imagery that would otherwise occur if the scan rate differed from the charge shift rate. For instance, a constant scan rate inhibits the ability to scan interesting objects or regions of a scene at a slower scan rate than uninteresting objects or regions, which would increase information collection from such interesting objects or regions of the scene.